Harlan Estate 2016 The Maiden Premium Napa Wine Review

Harlan Estate was started in 1984 by Bill Harlan, who wanted to create a first growth of California wine. His vineyard site is ideal: in the western hills of Oakville right above Martha’s Vineyard and To Kalon. The vineyard is 240 acres of which 40 acres is planted with vines.

Harlan Estate’s first commercial vintage was the 1990, which was released in 1996. The first vintage of The Maiden was the 1995 vintage. The vineyard composition is 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot. The wine spends around 24 to 26 months in a mix of new and used French oak barrels. It is bottled unfined and unfiltered at the estate. About 2000 cases of Harlan and 1000 cases of The Maiden are produced each year.

In April of 2021, Bill’s son Will Harlan was appointed CEO of Harlan.

For more information about the winery, please visit their website at https://www.harlanestate.com/

Hello everyone trophy 100 hun welcome back to my YouTube channel today I’m doing a review of the Harland estate 2016 the maiden many of my viewers and subscribers will know that in my community page during the holidays I said that I was going to drink this wine during the New Year celebration

Unfortunately I had a little bit of a cold and had a little bit of cough so I kind of delayed that so this is kind of a delayed review that I should have done during the New Year season the Harland estate story is a really good one it was

Started in 1984 by Bill Harland and he wanted to create a first growth wine for California I wanted to read you a quote which I think is really good it he says if we can enrich people’s lives and just maybe Inspire them to do something beyond what they might otherwise have

Done that brings us great satisfaction our purpose is to help our patrons to have an even more enjoyable and healthy life I really like that idea that you know no not just drinking wine for the sake of drinking wine I love the idea he’s trying to inspire drinkers to reach

For more so Harland estate sits on the Western Hills of Oakville it’s about 240 acres in total uh area of which only about 40 acres is planted with vines location of the winery is ideal it’s right above Martha’s Vineyards which is height Sellers and the tokalon uh Vineyard which is I’ve done other

Previous videos about so a really a great place to uh grow uh grapes uh probably the best spot in Napa Valley The Vineyard is planted 70% Cabernet seon 20% Malo 8% uh Cabernet Fran and 2% petite Pau with the maiden the name for that is because it’s kind of a

Reflection of its big sister the um Harland estate wine so then this is called the maiden the first commercial vintage of uh Harland estate was released in 1996 uh but that was the 1990 vintage and um at that time it was $65 a bottle which was expensive at that time but of

Course now is not even close to what it’s worth the maiden debuted in around 1995 so it must have been released a couple of years after um the uh hland estate the wine is spends about 24 to 26 months in a mix of uh you new and used

French Oak barrels and it is bottled unfined and also unfiltered in 2021 uh bill turned over the reins of the uh Winery to his son will Harland who has been appointed CEO of Harland Estates and if you get the opportunity to drink hard Marin which I consider a

First growth in the Napa region probably even more so than let’s say Opus or dominous one this is a really really Flagship type wine I would um take that opportunity because it’s really important to know these standards in my opinion and people may disagree with

This but if you have the means if you need to drink the first growth wines to really understand bordo now of course it depends on your means and I’m not saying you know you have to drink that but if you have the means you should drink that

And likewise if you have the means to be able to drink uh Harlin you should do that because that’s the standard and it’s really important to understand the standard and then you can understand why people are so Lov in with Bordeaux wines or nap wines that’s what I find a lot in

Terms of the entry level or beginner people they buy a really nice bottle of wine and they say well I don’t get it right I don’t actually understand this wine and part of the reason is that they have been probably drinking for their whole lives um kind of more value wines

And thinking that’s the standard so if you compare it then this wine is different and it may not be good or bad it’s just different and so your standard is set in a different Manner and I’ve repeated this story a number of times on this channel just as an example in um

You know a lot of the Chinese restaurant here we have kind of a veget s which we call borch so I’ve been eating that for all my life in you know these Hong Kong style cafes you know they always have cream uh soup or borch and I’ve always

Had bourch and I love borch so when we went to Russia I was so excited it’s like I love borch boy when I go to Russia I’m going to go so we went to Russia and the borch was um not didn’t have as much meat in it it had um more

Like uh purple uh vegetables and and we’re like that’s not borch so I think those people thought we were nuts what are you talking about a trophy we’re in Russia of course it’s borch what we were used to which was the Hong Kong style borch was not really the borch and

That’s the example I’m making like you know if all your life you’re drinking value Napa Valley you’re thinking that’s the standard that’s not the standard the standard is this wi so that’s why I’m saying you know if you can you can work backwards um and you can taste this wine and then

Make this the standard and then realize kind of what everyone else is trying to copy instead of thinking of Valley Wine in terms of a Valley Napa or Valley bort is the standard that’s not the standard in in uh Bordeaux is going to be the first growth wines and it’s going to be

Petruse and again it’s not for everyone and not everyone has that means but if you have those means that’s why I’m saying if you have the opportunity go go and taste it and um that can kind of re-calibrate why things um are so expensive and it I think makes it more

Easier to understand why certain wines are so expensive so let’s taste this wine I’ll let you know that I’ve had it open now for two days I’ve um had it with a number of things um out of the bottle it’s pretty heavy um of course if I was normally drinking this I would

Probably decant uh for a good couple C of hours it’s not going to over deant SE in 2016 a little young probably you could probably age this a little bit younger as you can see for the color it’s a beautiful uh crimson red um a really really nice color so let’s taste

And smell of wine so on the aroma now this is after 2 days of Iration um it’s still very frequent you can imagine the how frequent and um how it came came out when it first came out of the bottle when it first came out of the bottle it

Was all black fruit Oak vanilla um but not in an unbalanced way very intense um there’s no missing it and it’s uh quite easy to distinguish even now you you um have a little bit of mintiness but you have that core black fruit ciss black plums blackberries and then that Oak influence

On it very clear distinct very aromatic on the taste of this wine that’s why it’s so important I think to drink this wine this is what they mean by the California fruit so it’s so intensely fruit it’s almost to a point where it’s overe extracted so so this is first of all a

Very tanic wine and it’s also a very high alcohol content L it’s 14.8 you don’t taste that at all the only thing that goes through your mind when you sip this wine is fruit not in a bad way this is how intense the fruit is that you it doesn’t

You don’t even feel the 148% 14.8% alcohol you don’t feel the high tanins at all um so the fruit just takes over and it’s all your dark fruits cassis Blackberry black plums um black cherries and then you get on the aftertaste a little bit of tobacco a little bit of

Earthiness Oak influences licorice so it’s really and I think the other thing is it’s nice and smooth it’s balanced and it’s got that great mid palette it doesn’t dip at all some people argue that their Winery actually sits on the tokalon site the reason why there’s some

Discrep see because their lands was not even though it technically is part of the tokalon site it was never planted with grapes until bill harand got there so technically it is tokalon but it’s not tokalon grapes as we know it because the tokalon vineyard was um just uh

Below it but again all that fruit comes through this uh wine it’s um very intense and if you are in into Napa wines this is the standard um even if you’re not into Napa wines uh I think you’ll really enjoy this wine because it’s so powerful and um it’s smooth it’s very

Balanced it’s a it’s a really nice drinking wine it’s not it’s surprising because a lot of wines that are High tanon um I get really uh red and I get kind of um my heart palpitations go up high and it doesn’t fit me feel that comfortable this wine actually makes me

Feel very comfortable and I think it’s because the balance is so good on this wine so here’s the cork it says the maiden 2016 there is some uh red um wax on the top of it this is the label the maiden very simple design nothing on the

Back not much on the back and then um here is the wine itself look at the color um so this is a 8-year-old wine but look at the exceptional color of this wine uh beautiful very viscous I think it’s got a lot of years left in this wine easily another 10 years

Um and again I don’t think you can overair this wine you can pop this uh into a decanter for 4 or eight hours it’s not going to really um dissipate the Aromas or The Taste it’s still it’s a very strong wine very balanced it is really hedonistic in the American Cab

Style and this is prototypical American Cab this is exactly what the producers when you talk about cus Harland all of them started off with this type of idea to show off the fruit and that’s what this is doing it’s showing off the fruit and it’s a different type of taste

Profile than Australian wines where it’s a shiras and it’s fruit forward also but that is way more jammy this is really fresh got some acidity and really bursting it’s kind of like um just biting on fruits uh biting on blackberries or or blueberries that gush of fruit that’s what this wine tastes

Like and that’s what they wanted with American cap um what I find with some of the more value Napa caps is they try to uh imitate this and they’ve got the high strong alcohol they’ve got the p is but there’s no balance and the fruit content

Isn’t as high so with those wines once I smell it I smell alcohol right away ooo that’s alcoholic this wine is the same or more alcoholic than most Napa cab wines but you don’t smell alcohol at all you just smell fruit and you smell the

Loveliness of um Oak but not over OED a lot of wines just over Oak over alkalize their wines and they don’t have this intense they just don’t have that intensity of fruit to be able to cover the other wines and this is the key component to napac cab is the fruit

Forward when we talk about fruit forward that means fruit intense that means it covers up the alcohol it covers up the tanins that’s all you taste honestly when you taste this wine all you taste is fruit um and it’s kind of a lovely feeling it’s a little bit intense for my

Perspective the give us drinking this the whole night it kind of would bother me because it’s so fruity but um it is I acknowledge it’s some people really like this taste and you know a glass of two of this wine I love this really wellmade really think this is a great wine I’m

Going to give it 94 points I think a lot of people would rate this higher than me uh because again that’s not my personal preference this type of style but I acknowledge it is a really really well-made wine so I think a lot of people would rate this 97 uh 98 points

But from my perspective it’s between 94 and 95 um somewhere around there I would have rated at 94 Five Points and then I started to drink more of it and it just got to me it’s kind of wow this is really fruit forward and again it’s just

A a personal preference so uh between 94 and 95 points that’s kind of my reading on this one hope you’ve enjoyed this video and until next time happy drinking